Data in Representative Democracy

The relationship between politicians and citizens is at the core of representative democracy, but any number of organizations desire some form of representative relationship between themselves and their participants, clients, etc. In the political realm, researchers are using various data sources to study the representative relationship, for example voter studies, elite surveys, text analysis, and data and online tools are increasingly used to strengthen the representative relationship. Voting Advice Applications, for example, use data on party policy positions to present voters with advice on who to vote for. This session will look into the models of what the representative relationship can and should look like, and how data can be used to study and improve this relationship.